is a pretty good explanation of how regulation is strangling nuclear in the US, driving up costs by many factors and extending build times unconscionably.
Also a pretty good argument for razing the NRC to the basement and starting fresh. 5 million documents cannot be reviewed in order to decide what to keep in any reasonable amount of time. The whole thing should be discarded.
You're very welcome. I appreciate your articles and efforts to educate folks.
I find the fact that Trump must bypass the NRC by building in special locations to be an additional argument/example of why the NRC should be utterly destroyed.
It is not serving the USA in any meaningful sense of the word.
Maybe AI can review the 5 million documents. And then create more documents and deal with the planning process. Millions of documents reviewed and decided upon, in 24 hours. Meanwhile, German hospitals and Doctors will probably get AI to generate and send faxes, with other AI systems reading and processing the faxes, and generating new workflows.
Perhaps I'm just too antiquated, but I think that if regulations are so complex that you need AI to navigate and/or understand them, then those regulations are a disaster.
But what about by value? Hydro plants have the the advantage that they can operate for the 35% of most expensive electricity hours. If nuclear plants can't throttle down, then they have to sell electricity at zero prices during the middle of the day. Hence why Thorcon reactors are shown with salt buffers to ramp down output midday.
In future, conventional reactors will have to schedule several months down time for refuelling and maintenance, over the summer, every second year.
Yes, hydro is dispatchable. Dams reserve reservoir water for time of highnest revenue per kWh. Even today's reactors are potentially dispatchable sources, changing power over periods of several hours. New nuclear plants like Thorcon can change power at the European grid requirement, 5% per minute. Terrapower uses a battery-like molten salt heat storage buffer to run the reactor at constant power.
Typically nuclear plants operate well over 90% of the time, scheduling maintenance and refueling for sreasonly low demand periods.
Thorcon has two big advantages over PWRs in terms of competing with renewables.
1. The molten salt buffer you mention, so no need to sell electricity at negative prices in the day. (A conventional 1GW PWR would have to procure maybe 4GWh of batteries to avoid this issue - which is still cheap compared to the cost of e.g. Hinkley C).
2. Something to thing about: A 4 year module replacement moves much of the cost from "Capital Expenditure" to an "Operating-type expenditure". If the Thorcon plant operates at 80% capacity, in theory the core module should last 5 years, instead of 4 years. Unlike with a conventional plant ("in 50 years we can extend the life by 10 years - yeah!"), that provides an operating cost benefit.
Alex, I suspect that your projected downtime for nuclear plants is over-stated. Lose a whole summer every two years? I can’t provide details, but after multiple years of reactor operation, Enterprise went through a two-year overhaul in the late 70s. I think it’s safe to say that few if any of our eight reactors were refueled, and after that overhaul went for more multiple years before they even planned another overhaul. Land-based reactors probably shut down for partial refueling more frequently to allow maintenance in their steam plants, since BWRs (boiling-water reactors), it seems to me, probably require irradiated components to “cool off,” before repair personnel can enter. But I admit ignorance here.
Correction: "Reservoir Hydro plants may have the the advantage that they can operate for the 35%..."
Most plants built nowadays are Run-of-the-River and don't have the water storage capability or aren't allowed to store water due to it's environmental effects. Also there are limits on how much water that reservoir hydro plants can store due to rainfall patterns and the need to maintain river flows to protect the downstream environment. And to supply water for agricultural & city domestic water uses.
Also hydro plants have maximum capacity in the spring when the freshet meltwater surge occurs. Happens to also be when solar is typically max and electricity demand is minimum. Quite common for the wind to also be max in the spring.
Your article
https://hargraves.substack.com/p/drowning-in-nrc-documents
is a pretty good explanation of how regulation is strangling nuclear in the US, driving up costs by many factors and extending build times unconscionably.
Also a pretty good argument for razing the NRC to the basement and starting fresh. 5 million documents cannot be reviewed in order to decide what to keep in any reasonable amount of time. The whole thing should be discarded.
Thank you. In a sense, Trump has just skipped by NRC for new reactors at DOE labs and at US military bases.
You're very welcome. I appreciate your articles and efforts to educate folks.
I find the fact that Trump must bypass the NRC by building in special locations to be an additional argument/example of why the NRC should be utterly destroyed.
It is not serving the USA in any meaningful sense of the word.
Maybe AI can review the 5 million documents. And then create more documents and deal with the planning process. Millions of documents reviewed and decided upon, in 24 hours. Meanwhile, German hospitals and Doctors will probably get AI to generate and send faxes, with other AI systems reading and processing the faxes, and generating new workflows.
Atomic Canyon already does this, helping reactor developers.
If you need AI to navigate the regulatory environment, then that regulatory environment should be removed.
What's the end point of that trend? No one who cannot afford expensive AI can participate in the economy?
Although bear in mind that Fractal Computing have just reduced the cost of AI for commercial applications by 10^-3
Perhaps I'm just too antiquated, but I think that if regulations are so complex that you need AI to navigate and/or understand them, then those regulations are a disaster.
Interesting comparison of power station outputs.
But what about by value? Hydro plants have the the advantage that they can operate for the 35% of most expensive electricity hours. If nuclear plants can't throttle down, then they have to sell electricity at zero prices during the middle of the day. Hence why Thorcon reactors are shown with salt buffers to ramp down output midday.
In future, conventional reactors will have to schedule several months down time for refuelling and maintenance, over the summer, every second year.
Yes, hydro is dispatchable. Dams reserve reservoir water for time of highnest revenue per kWh. Even today's reactors are potentially dispatchable sources, changing power over periods of several hours. New nuclear plants like Thorcon can change power at the European grid requirement, 5% per minute. Terrapower uses a battery-like molten salt heat storage buffer to run the reactor at constant power.
Typically nuclear plants operate well over 90% of the time, scheduling maintenance and refueling for sreasonly low demand periods.
Thorcon has two big advantages over PWRs in terms of competing with renewables.
1. The molten salt buffer you mention, so no need to sell electricity at negative prices in the day. (A conventional 1GW PWR would have to procure maybe 4GWh of batteries to avoid this issue - which is still cheap compared to the cost of e.g. Hinkley C).
2. Something to thing about: A 4 year module replacement moves much of the cost from "Capital Expenditure" to an "Operating-type expenditure". If the Thorcon plant operates at 80% capacity, in theory the core module should last 5 years, instead of 4 years. Unlike with a conventional plant ("in 50 years we can extend the life by 10 years - yeah!"), that provides an operating cost benefit.
Alex, I suspect that your projected downtime for nuclear plants is over-stated. Lose a whole summer every two years? I can’t provide details, but after multiple years of reactor operation, Enterprise went through a two-year overhaul in the late 70s. I think it’s safe to say that few if any of our eight reactors were refueled, and after that overhaul went for more multiple years before they even planned another overhaul. Land-based reactors probably shut down for partial refueling more frequently to allow maintenance in their steam plants, since BWRs (boiling-water reactors), it seems to me, probably require irradiated components to “cool off,” before repair personnel can enter. But I admit ignorance here.
David, I am aware that nuclear plants typically refuel for about a month at a time. Also they refuel every 18 to 24 months.
My point is that in future they have to move to a two year cycle, to shut down in the summer (every second year), may choose to shut down for longer.
If the alternative selling electricity into a wholesale market at $0 for eight hours every day, because of solar power.
In theory, shutting down for six months every two years would extend operating life, but after sixty year, discounted cash flows are irrelevant.
Correction: "Reservoir Hydro plants may have the the advantage that they can operate for the 35%..."
Most plants built nowadays are Run-of-the-River and don't have the water storage capability or aren't allowed to store water due to it's environmental effects. Also there are limits on how much water that reservoir hydro plants can store due to rainfall patterns and the need to maintain river flows to protect the downstream environment. And to supply water for agricultural & city domestic water uses.
Also hydro plants have maximum capacity in the spring when the freshet meltwater surge occurs. Happens to also be when solar is typically max and electricity demand is minimum. Quite common for the wind to also be max in the spring.